Ed Miliband: Labour will guarantee people can see their GP within 48 hours

Ed Miliband has said a Labour government would ensure people can see a GP within 48 hours if they want to, as he pledges to increase surgeries' budgets by £100 million.

The Labour leader said NHS patients who are in serious need an appointment will be seen within 24 hours, as he launched a scathing attack on the Coalition's record on health.

Mr Miliband said he would slash spending on consultants and senior managers to pay for a funding injection for GPs, as well as pledging to abolish the market framework introduced by the government.

In a speech in Manchester on Monday, Mr Miliband said it was a "scandal" that the proportion of patients getting a GP appointment within 48 hours had fallen from 80 per cent under Labour to just 40 per cent now.

He revealed £78m a year is being spent on new competition requirements, and said government quango Moniter - instrumental in health minister Jeremy Hunt's reforms to the NHS - spends £55m on consultants and top managers each year.

Unveiling Labour's plans for the health service, Mr Miliband said he will put the NHS at the heart of his campaign ahead of the 2015 election.

Under the proposals, every NHS patient contacting their surgery would have the right to consult a doctor or nurse the same day, with a face-to-face appointment in the surgery that day if they need to be seen quickly.

Patients would also be able to book non-urgent appointments with their preferred GP more than 48 hours in advance, Mr Miliband said.

He claimed that a 5 per cent rise in patients seeing a GP of their choice could cut emergency admissions by up to 159,000 per year and save the NHS £375m.

Announcing his plan, he said: "This will be better for patients, because they have better access to their GP surgery; better for the NHS, because it will save money currently spent in A&E; and better for Britain, because it is the kind of health service we need."

But he admitted that he would not be able to match the NHS spending rises implemented by the last Labour government.

"We will have to do things in a new way to make our health service better, to save money where we can - and make sure that every single penny is well spent," he said.

The announcement follows Prime Minister David Cameron unveiling a £50m fund to extend GP surgery opening hours to 8am to 8pm seven days a week.

But Mr Miliband said: "David Cameron has broken his bond of trust with the British people on the NHS. He has proved the oldest truth in British politics: you can't trust the Tories with the NHS."

He added: "It’s great people are living longer - but it means the NHS is having to cope with people in their 80s and 90s that it never had to cope with before. They don’t simply have medical needs, but care needs which the NHS is not used to tackling."

A Conservative health spokesman said: "This is an unfunded pie-in-the-sky policy that Labour can't pay for and doctors can't deliver.

"Far from improving access, another top-down target will leave GPs less time with their patients and put more pressure on general practice."